Strange Times of Snow
Desperate times need desperate measures. So I've eaten eight squares of chocolate. Cadbury's Dairy Milk, still my favourite.
This is not the kind of thing that I usually do, because I'm diabetic, for a start. But everything seems very strange here at the moment, and very different from usual.
It's just the sheer amount of snow that's fallen. My mother was supposed to be going to Amsterdam today, and changed her mind about whether or not to travel about eleventeen times. Finally she saw sense and decided against it - - and then, happily, the flight was cancelled anyway so she won't lose the money.
Nobody can get anywhere and I seem to have spent the whole day in the agency office dealing with cancellations and postponements, which is somehow very exhausting. I was supposed to be doing a roleplay job in Leeds today - quite a big job for the department concerned, and it had been booked for months. I could have got there, but they reckoned that the students wouldn't, and they cancelled it. I think that really they should pay me for such a late cancellation - - but know that it simply won't have occurred to them, and that their Finance department will just say No if I ask.
I'm glad that Olli's here as he's been working in our office and giving me some much-needed help with all the work - the actor who should have been in today was snowed in and couldn't get here.
Stephen actually took the car to work today, rather than cycling. He cycled every single day last winter in spite of the snow - - but this is just too deep. He came home early and got caught in gridlocked traffic as everyone else did the same thing.
Meanwhile, Gareth has got a temporary driving job. It's every night this week, delivering newspapers to places all over East Yorkshire. It's kind of a paper round - - on a very grand scale! It's hard work and he's getting ready to set off now - of all the weeks to be doing this job, it's going to be the most difficult ever, but he seems well up for the challenge.
I've cleared the bird table of snow many times today, and fed the birds lots of times, and given them fresh water which has frozen almost immediately. I'm sure that many of the birds will die in this extreme cold. They all look much rounder than usual as they fluff up their feathers to keep warm. I saw a tiny wren in the bushes the other day - I really don't know how such small birds, which need to eat so frequently, can possibly survive the cold.
Gareth dug his car out of the drive and the snow was so deep that it covered the number-plate. The trees are all bowed down with snow and everything's eerily quiet.
I know that people in countries where there's frequent snow won't be impressed by any of this. But here in Britain we're no longer used to it - last winter was the first hard winter for decades.
I really thought, after several decades of mild winters, that I'd never see the snow in knee-high drifts in our garden again. I was wrong. It feels very strange.
This is not the kind of thing that I usually do, because I'm diabetic, for a start. But everything seems very strange here at the moment, and very different from usual.
It's just the sheer amount of snow that's fallen. My mother was supposed to be going to Amsterdam today, and changed her mind about whether or not to travel about eleventeen times. Finally she saw sense and decided against it - - and then, happily, the flight was cancelled anyway so she won't lose the money.
Nobody can get anywhere and I seem to have spent the whole day in the agency office dealing with cancellations and postponements, which is somehow very exhausting. I was supposed to be doing a roleplay job in Leeds today - quite a big job for the department concerned, and it had been booked for months. I could have got there, but they reckoned that the students wouldn't, and they cancelled it. I think that really they should pay me for such a late cancellation - - but know that it simply won't have occurred to them, and that their Finance department will just say No if I ask.
I'm glad that Olli's here as he's been working in our office and giving me some much-needed help with all the work - the actor who should have been in today was snowed in and couldn't get here.
Stephen actually took the car to work today, rather than cycling. He cycled every single day last winter in spite of the snow - - but this is just too deep. He came home early and got caught in gridlocked traffic as everyone else did the same thing.
Meanwhile, Gareth has got a temporary driving job. It's every night this week, delivering newspapers to places all over East Yorkshire. It's kind of a paper round - - on a very grand scale! It's hard work and he's getting ready to set off now - of all the weeks to be doing this job, it's going to be the most difficult ever, but he seems well up for the challenge.
I've cleared the bird table of snow many times today, and fed the birds lots of times, and given them fresh water which has frozen almost immediately. I'm sure that many of the birds will die in this extreme cold. They all look much rounder than usual as they fluff up their feathers to keep warm. I saw a tiny wren in the bushes the other day - I really don't know how such small birds, which need to eat so frequently, can possibly survive the cold.
Gareth dug his car out of the drive and the snow was so deep that it covered the number-plate. The trees are all bowed down with snow and everything's eerily quiet.
I know that people in countries where there's frequent snow won't be impressed by any of this. But here in Britain we're no longer used to it - last winter was the first hard winter for decades.
I really thought, after several decades of mild winters, that I'd never see the snow in knee-high drifts in our garden again. I was wrong. It feels very strange.
posted by Daphne at 10:16 pm
3 Comments:
Ahhh memories ! Sorry.
I did like that eerie silence that would accompany a prolonged fall of that heavy snow, the stuff that lies around for days and can turn otherwise dull countryside vistas into picturesque tableaux.
Beautiful...but I still don't miss it !
You think the snow in Leeds is bad? You should try Sheffield! So much snow fell today that I was able to simply walk from a snowdrift on to our roof to repoint the chimney. All the birds I feed have been persuaded to come indoors where they've been watching "Jeremy Kyle" and eating Pringles. Snow joke I can tell you!
It certainly is snow joke.
Like your mum, I've changed my mind at least eleventeen times about whether to come north this weekend or not but sense is beginning to prevail and I think I'll stay holed up in Oxford.
Minor overnight snow and present sleeting combined with excessively icy roads, pavements and dire warnings on weather forecasts / news are strong deciding factors. However, the newscaster comment 'It is deep everywhere' is patently untrue. Unless he had stopped talking about the snow.
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